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AN ORIGINAL PHOTOPLAY 

BOTH COMIC AND PATHETIC 



BY 



BANGS BURGESS 

1238 CommonwealtK Ave. 

BOSTON, MASS. 

In Oare of 

Mrs. JOSEPH A. MAHONEY 



CopyrigKt, 1919, Mre. J. A. Mahone;? 



)CI.A525701 



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TMP92-0C8740 



^ Aa\ CAST OF CHARACTERS 



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Nettie Nelson, twenty years, sales girl. 

Albert Rice, floor-walker in the store where Nettie was employed. 

Girl at handkerchief counter. 

Harry Kendrick, millionaire club man. 

Walter Stone, fifty-five years, colored valet of Harry Kendricks. 

Mrs. Stone, wife of Walter Stone. 

Crew of yacht. 

Boat crew of destroyer. 

Church congregation. 

Minister. 

Children in street scene. 

Shop girls. 

Minstrel group. 

Two colored musicians. 

Street children. 

Nettie Nelson, a pretty country girl, gets work away from home first time, in a store at Newport. She 
is arranging ties and gloves behind counter. Rice, the floor-walker, leans over the counter and gives her a 
few points about the goods and then talks to her for a few minutes. Girl at handkerchief counter, likes Rice, 
jealous. Rice falls in love with Nettie and she is quite taken with him. 

On Sunday Rice and Nettie take the Cliiif walk. Rice tells her of his ambition, some day to own and run a 
dry goods store in some middling-size town. Nettie turns up her nose at this, as she looks rapturously on the 
magnificent estates and longs for all the luxury she sees there. Rice tells her that most of these Marble Man- 
sions contain no home at all. Rice proposes, and although Nettie has grown very fond of him, she refuses. 

One Harry Kendrick, a millionaire, comes to buy ties; he is struck with Nettie's beauty, and returns fre- 
quently to her counter, consuming hours of time as she fits him to gloves ; he looks over ties and at the same time 
looking Nettie over. 

Rice looks on, still her friend: warns her against Kendrick, but she thinks Rice jealous. 

Harry Kendrick buys more ties. Asks Nettie to ride. She accepts. Rice approaches Nettie just before 
closing time, warns Nettie again and she tells him her affairs are none of his business, just as handkerchief 
counter girl passes them. 

She goes auto riding to Narragansett Pier with Harry, has never had such a wonderful time ; is treated 
with all deference : is taken to the Casino, where they have lunch and dance. She thinks that Rice was mistaken 
in his opinion of Kendrick, and has visions of becoming his wife. Before leaving her at the door of her board- 
ing house, Kendrick proposes yachting party for the following Sunday, telling her of the gay friends that will 
join them. She delightedly accepts his invitation, but tells him to meet her in front of the Old Stone Mill, for 
she is afraid of boarding-house gossip. They shake hands and part. 

Sunday Nettie walks to the park and sits on a bench. No sooner is she seated than Rice, who has been 
reading a paper on another bench, joins her. Nettie is disconcerted at this, for Kendrick has just driven up to 
the curb. Barely nodding a good-bye to Rice, Nettie departs. Just as she is entering the auto, two of her store 
companions walk by, look knowingly at each other, and then at Rice. One of these is the girl from the handker- 
chief counter. 

As Nettie steps on deck of yacht, she looks about for other guests. To her surprise, there is no one on board 
besides the crew, except Walter Stone, Kendrick's colored valet, and herself. Kendrick assures her that the 
other guests are to be taken on within an hour, and says: "In the meantime we will take a little cruise for our- 
selves, and be back at the pier in sixty minutes." 

Kendrick shows Nettie all about the boat. She peeks into the well-stored ice chest and into the private 
cabins. All this time Kendrick entertains her with stcries of different cruises he has taken on this yacht — for- 
getting to tell her of the companions who enjoyed them with him. 

As time passes, Nettie grows uneasy, walks to the rail and tries to see the pier. Asks Kendrick again and 
again to go back and get the rest of the party, for the sun is setting and it has become very cloudy. Kendrick 
laughs and says, "Isn't two a party? We are out for a week's cruise." Nettie draws back indignant and 



alarmed. Kendrick tries to calm her, telling her he is quite accustomed to the old stuff she is trying to bluff 
him with. He tries to persuade Nettie to enter the cabin. She shrinks away from him in fear. He seizes 
her waist and tries to force her through the cabin door. Nettie tells him she will not leave the deck. 

Walter Stone looks on from a little distance and is puzzled. He, as valet, is habituated to similar situations, 
thinks they are having a little tiff, that sne is just another of Kendrick's questionable woman friends. Nettie 
screams and appeals to Stone. Stone hesitates. 

The vision of his own daughter, a colored girl of sixteen, struggling with a negro assailant, comes to him, 
and he knocks the millionaire down and stands threateningly over iiim. Some of the crew interfere, pick 
Kendrick up and seize Stone. 

Kendrick very angry. Nettie crying, and Stone defiant. It has begun to rain. Kendrick orders the crew 
to seize Nettie and make towards a small island in the distance. 

.Arriving near the island, Nettie and Stone are forced by Kendrick's order down the gangway, taunting her 
with what their rescuers will think when they know she has spent the night there with a negro. 

Nettie and Stone are rowed by the sailors to the island. Nettie carried with little courtesy through the 
breakers by sailor and deposited on beach. Stone pushed over side roughly, picks himself up and wades ashore. 
Nettie is terror-stricken as the sailors push oft' in the loat. 

In a dilapidated shooting shack, surrounded by growth of weeds and rushes they take shelter from the in- 
creasing storm. Stone enters first and Nettie reluctantly. 

Stone gets busy, breaks some boards, lights a fire in the little fire-place, places broken chair for Nettie, who 
sits near fire drying her clothes. Stone sits at a distance. Nettie continually eyes Stone fearfullv. Stone realizes 
that she is afraid of him and talks to her in a gay manner about his wife and children, as he shows her their 
drenched photographs that he carries over his heart. 

As the evening advances, Nettie asks Stone to sit on the other side of the fire-place. As he breaks more 
wood he talks to Nettie, who now appears interested. He entertains her with reminiscences of his life. 

Stone says, "My life has been full of adventures. First, as a boy, down South with no chance, I became 
discouraged ; I was beaten more by the man who hired me than were the mules I drove. I used to cart bales 
of cotton onto Mississippi wharf with steamers alongside: those steamers always made me want to go some- 
where. I had no folks to keep me, so I left them old mules right there and stowed myself away on that boat. 
I didn't stay stowed away long, I was discovered, abused and made to work my passage. 

"You want me to sing? Well, my voice is cracked now, but it was not when I was a member of Haverly's 
.minstrels. ( )h, they were before your time. Why. bless yo' heart, child, we appeared in Kensington Gardens, 
before the then Prince of Wales; he was some fellow, I tell you; that was about 1884. But bless you, I didn't 
get from stowaway to street-singer. I first worked on the wharf at Boston, but I got the same treatment that the 
white boys got that worked with me, and saved every cent for that old guitar, and many children I have seen 
happily dancing on the sidewalk to the tune of it. 

"You should have seen me as a street singer, with two other darkies." First has Nettie crying, then laugh- 
ing as he tells her his experience going through the Harvard Campus. 

"A young southern gentleman had been carousing there at Harvard ; told to stop or get out ; won't apologize. 
Thus discouraged, just about to get out, was lying on one of those wide window seats they have there, when we 
three darkies came along. 

"Ask any Harvard man that graduated about twenty years ago if he don't remember the three of us. I was 
the big fat one that played the guitar; the tall brown fellow, he fiddled; and the little short black nut, he banjoed 
it. and sing! — well, I guess we could sing! Ask any old graduate! 

"Well, anyway this young fellow was all in, and we happened under his window with our old songs, Swanic 
Ribber, and Silver Threads, that was before that old song was revived. Well he just melted, thought of home 
and mother, and pretty soon was down in the campus, giving us all the silver he had, and promising us to do 
better. We had to tell him to go and tell that to President Elliot, and he did. 

"But best of all. Miss Nettie, was my wedding, when I was about twenty-five. We had some wedding right 
there in Cambridge. .Almost under the shades of Harvard College, and all the professors sent gifts, for our 
music supplied innocent fun for the students." 

As the stories end Nettie falls asleep. Stone takes off his coat, creeps over carefully and covers her. 

In the morning in response to the valet's signal, they are taken off by a passing destroyer, and, greatly hu- 
miliated, she returns to her position. 



^ 



Kendrick has also returned, reported about the clubs the insolence of his valet, so he can obtain no other 
position. 

Nettie, behind the counter, downcast and embarrassed, for Kendrick has also come into the store and gone 
to the handkerchief counter, and whispered something to the girls there about Nettie ; and then passes to her 
counter, and before Rice, takes her two hands in his and before she can recover herself says, "I will see you to- 
night, little girl. Don't forget, same old place," and is gone. Nettie is dumbfounded, and Rice's faith is shaken. 
He wishes only good girls in the store, so he asks her to come to his office, and he dismisses her as kindly as 
possible, but without a recommendation. 

Nettie is short of money, as she had spent most of it on clothes to make herself presentable, in order to 
go with Kendrick, and she is in despair. 

Stone cannot find a position as valet. He will not loaf, so he takes the position of floor sweeper in the 
store Nettie is discharged from. 

Before the store opens in the morning, he hears some of the girls of the handkerchief counter telling Rice 
that Nettie stayed over night on an island with a colored man, and is now off with Kendrick again. 

Stone is indignant, and tells Rice the truth, and Rice and Stone both become frightened about Nettie. Rice 
finally finds her in her own humble home, a sadder and wiser girl, caring for smaller brothers. Rice again 
proposes. Folds Nettie in his arms, to the amusement of her small brothers. 

Nettie and Rice are married in her home town. Prominently showing among the guests, Mr. and Mrs. 
Stone, grinning broadly, for did he not mend the match ? 



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